chsdbacks Chapter 215 – Plague of Pain
Chapter 215 – Plague of Pain
Chapter 215 – Plague of PainLuna’s logic made too much sense. Of course, there was the chance he didn’t have the poison Attribute. Children didn’t necessarily have their parents Attribute, but there was a higher probability. If the boy didn’t have this poison type Attribute, then they could jump back to their original plan of attacking Abe directly.
Attacking Abe was something they had been thinking about for a while. Once they had learned he was highly likely to be an active party in their harassment, and more importantly, involved in the death of Mary’s family. Anlesa knew they had to do something but what was tricky.
Originally, a non-physical approach seemed like the best. Destroying the reputation of the head seemed like a good idea, but the speed and consequences of that may not be fast enough.
Syrus and Luna were the ones experienced in this field. Syrus only minorly, as she had seen nobles and merchants take massive reputation damage that was supposed to take them down, but if you have power and brute force authority, why not continue forward anyway? Even when the horrible truths of certain parties were revealed, knights still worked for them, and people who were protected didn’t cry out about the injustice.
She understood greatly that things were different here. The people of the city wouldn’t stay quiet at the first remnant of the past that tried to return, being under threat by their own Prime Minister. But that didn't mean he couldn’t cause his own destruction before the people pulled him down. And whatever organisation he controlled, the amount of damage they could do to individual people and the city itself was potentially huge.
Luna had also seen it. Though the effects were usually different. It was people the church targeted for the most part. It was a very different situation. She was part of an organisation that used its influence to crush people it deemed a nuisance. Sometimes they were people with proper crimes under their name, other times, innocents who needed to be gone.
Luna herself had never participated in any of the smear campaigns or ‘truth reveals,’ but she heard about them. The senior priests were almost bragging about how people were taken down, but they always tried to keep it subtle, as it would be improper to publicly talk about such actions. However, Luna had seen before the sides of victims, those who collapsed in despair, and others who used the rage to try to take down others with them.
The trio were scared.
That if Abe was the latter, a person who would try to take everyone down with him. The damage could be catastrophic. The trio had an active imagination about everything they could do.
Meeting up with Alba shouldn’t be too hard. Based on what they learned, he didn’t visit many locations, and the clock tower appeared to be the most likely option. They couldn’t stalk it constantly, but after a few days where Eva continued her research in the meanwhile, they finally noticed another figure in the clock tower and went to visit the boy.
They acquired a few different testing devices for Attributes. Many worked differently from each other. The church ones worked by comparing the Attribute to the ones etched into the tablets, but there were others that relied on a secondary party more to check.
Rose opened up the hatch to the top floor and found Alba sitting in the corner, looking at the streets below. His face was no longer the slightly healthy pale they saw last time; instead, he almost looked like a ghost, and the colour had even been drained from his eyes.
“Alba…” Rose looked down at the boy, who looked worse than before. “What has happened to you…”
“Rose… why are you here…”
“I wanted to test something and give you something. Child, mentioned not awakening your Attributes before, so I got a device to help scan what you have. I was going to give you tips on what the results were.”
“That’s nice…” Alba smiled. “But you shouldn’t be here… I heard they want to set up the tower again for another event… I only came since it was likely going to be the last time for a while…”
“Your poisoning has gotten worse…” Rose’s cold words carried a hint of warmth that Alba found comfort in. She felt a little distance throughout all their interactions, but seeing her worried but him felt warm. “Did you meet your father?”
“Yes… It was the first time he called for me. I ate the food in his office that he prepared for me. I was a little excited to talk with him, so I was honest… I have wanted to have dinner with my family again for a long time now. We talked about my tutors and if I had enjoyed my recent education, among other things.”
Rose asked, “Why did you eat it?”
“I didn’t want him to know I was suspicious.” Alba let out a pained smile. “After our conversation before… When I saw the food, I felt a little bit of dread. Why would he offer me food now… but from our talks before I kind of knew… but I didn’t want to let him know that… if he was the one who had been harming me, then shouldn’t I get some of my own revenge?”
“Yes, yes, you should.” Rose caressed the boy’s head. “What symptoms have you been feeling?”
“The slowness came back… stronger than before… perhaps it is the normal amount, but I am just used to moving a little faster.” His words were almost slurred as he struggled to speak.
“No, this is certainly worse than you were before.”
“I guess that is good then…” Replied Alba.
“Silly Child.” Luna applied as much healing as she possibly could.
Syrus and Eva worked together to check Alba’s insides again.
[They are so much worse…] (Syrus)
[He must have increased the dosage…] (Eva)
[Or swap to a different poison. Lavender already confirmed the boy had some level of poison resistance developing. Either way, something stronger would be necessary if he wanted to test theories or punish the boy.] (Syrus)
[Punsih…?] (Eva)
[He went from not really paying attention to looking at his son properly. He must have noticed the boy looked better. It shouldn’t have taken him this long, but now that it has… he either wants to punish the boy for leaving his radius of control or check if the boy is still in contact with us.]
“Thanks…” Alba felt a warmth within this chest. “This should help me get home.”
Rose shot him down. “You aren’t going home.”
Alba paused. “Why…?”
[My healing is having only a small effect…] Luna was deeply focused on the recovery, but it was so slow… the healing was happening, technically speaking, but the results were so much worse than before.
“If you go home, you might face a worse fate. Since that is a possibility, I cannot allow that to happen to someone I have chosen to assist.” Anlesa was not allowing him to return to that man’s house. They understand there was a high possibility that he would be safe. Killing the kid, well, if Abe wanted to do that, then he would’ve likely done that years ago. Suddenly doing it now because he received some healing from the enemy would be improbable.
The higher chance would be of more poisoning and locking the boy up somewhere. Whether he was to be used as bait or just as punishment didn’t matter.
Whatever the outcome was, Anlesa didn’t want him returning there. The boy had been through enough pain.
Rose picked up the boy. “Child, let’s move you somewhere else. “
“Okay…” Alba didn’t even argue.
[Lethargic, damaged internals, and the fact of healing is… a challenge.] Luna worriedly mused. [Doesn’t that sound like symptoms of the plague?]
[Ain’t that too much of a coincidence?] Syrus countered. [A person being tired and weak from being sick isn’t exactly uncommon.]
[Right, and we can’t compare it to the bodies of the past since we don’t have any examples besides what has been written in the prince’s records, but there were no diagrams or such written in them either. All that was mentioned was the internal damage, likely due to it not being centred on any one specific area.] Luna completely understood that in a normal situation, it would be an extreme coincidence, and Syrus was right with the overlap being common. But she also could tell Syrus countered for the purpose of countering. [But both cases have a common factor.]
[Exactly. The question would be, did Abe adapt his poison from the plague? Or was his poison the source of the plague?] (Syrus)
[The plague from the very beginning was a mystery… The source, cause, cure, everything.] Eva’s mind quickly clouded with negative emotions.
[A plague that never spread outside one country, and no matter the story, we do know non-exotic Attribute people died from it and could be infected with it. From what we read and heard, the time from initial infection to when symptoms show is long. There should be no reason it couldn’t have left Eletscoep. Despite how closed off this country can be, it does participate in trading and does export a lot of excess grains.]
…
[Abe…brought the plague into the city…] It was a painful realisation for Eva.
To her… even when she liked to debate all possibilities and not rule out scenarios until evidence was provided. It fit too perfectly.
She didn’t like the old fart already from everything they had learned, but… despite all of the evil he had committed. From their knowledge, he only took advantage of an evil disaster that destroyed the city's population.
Still, there was something even more deeply painful, knowing that a whole country suffered, many lives lost, because of one man’s desire.
Abe Esther, in Eva’s mind, was the worst existence she had ever had the displeasure of knowing, despite never having spoken to him once.
Dealing with the church was hard with the people of various combinations of indoctrination, greed, and malice. Her hatred of such an organisation only grew with time, with each deed they had to deal with. But there was something different with evil caused by people’s greed piling together versus one man’s that disgusted Eva.
In her head, it was like a potion. Something might be dangerous or helpful in small doses, but when its dosage goes beyond the recommended limits, problems emerge. But instead of a potion, Abe was just a deadly poison that had no redeeming qualities, even with small drops.
They decided to skip checking the boy’s attributes, which could happen after he had recovered. At this point, it didn’t matter if it was Abe himself or someone else. This city needed to be flipped.